The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, the approaches described in this section may not be prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Network services (such as AirPrint) and discovery systems are becoming popular. Many users are connecting to network services from their mobile devices and network applications. Typically, discovery systems support the discovery of network services that are in the same network segment or subnet as the devices that request the network services. However, in order to support the discovery of network services that are in different network segments or subnets of the requesting devices, one of two approaches may be implemented.
In one approach, multicast routing is implemented at a router that connects two networks or subnets. Multicast routing allows multicast traffic to pass between the subnets. However, some routers or wireless access points do not support the multicast routing feature.
In another approach, a server with specialized software is deployed in each network or subnet. These servers allow packets from either network or subnet to be sent to the other network or subnet. However, deploying such servers or software for each network or subnet tends to be cumbersome.